If there was any doubt before, now I have no doubt this blog is barred in China. I hope that one day very soon that the China and the CCP will realise it is strong enough not to fear words. And that include our's!
It may be that China has reasons to fear that the Chinese people - the masses - will act (or overeact) irrationally to information and the opinions of others. May be they lack the faculties of critical thinking, rational thinking, wisdom, tolerance and self-belief to respond in the most positive manner. That is also one of my concerns as China becomes a global power of historic proportions. By consciously feeding the population one carefully calibrated set of world view; one that is conducive to the ideal reality of the CCP, the CCP simply ensure that the danger persists and that can only increase.
Where most observers would see this through a power political lens, I happen to also see this as a cultural condition. One only has to look at many Chinese families to see a similar pattern of pride mixed with bitterness, success mixed with insecurity, respect mixed with resentment, love mixed with deception. Picture a scenario we see all so often: a family with showy and ambitious parents on-the-make. The parents push the kids hard, demand obedience but never listen or understand who the children really are or respect what they want from their lives. The parents lavish material goods and boasts of only good things but never admits of mistakes. Family life is competitive and opportunistic - anyone who behaves differently are treated harshly not only by parents but also by siblings. We can think of so many such families. The results are often the same, once the lid goes off the pressure-cooker, the kids rebel into all sorts of self-destructive behavior and the family crumbles into disarray, decline, and sometimes, in tragedy.
I believe the irony in the next 5 - 10 years may be this. There may come a day when Chinese public opinion becomes so unrealistic and unreasonable that CCP's controls becomes the last line of defense for the Chinese nation - and the rest of the world - from national and global tragedy.
Like someone who keeps a lion cub as a pet in the middle of a city, as the lion grows up the cage that used to keep the owner safe becomes something that struggles to protect the rest of the city (i.e. the world) from the lion - and, the lion (the Chinese people) from itself. Because the lion wants to leave the cage although the lion does not know that it is unable to handle and survive in the city and unable to survive in the wild. The CCP might find itself in the no-win position being the zoo-keeper struggling to keep the lion in the cage.
Society and the nation improves through self-examination and self-correction. Society must be open to new facts and new questions about the status quo no matter how uncomfortable or how disruptive they may be. The CCP needs to transition to a different social contract based on a more open and enlightened approach - even at the cost of its own demise - otherwise, to use a well-worn expression, it will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Any true Chinese patriot would wish China to avoid that fate.
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2 comments:
there is a general trend - I observe among many of our generation - moving from optimism to scepticism of CCP rule in the last one year or so.
One reason given was with the balance of pwoer shifting more towards China following the financial crisis and rising economic power, China has become less amenable to international opinion.
we will contribute however small it maybe to this open forum striving for a more perfect world..
Dear KY, I believe the trend is to hold the CCP to a standard that better reflect the needs China's "stage of development" and what is in-store in its future. As JM Keynes once said, "when the facts change, I change my mind". Given the speed at which China is changing, the CCP's political model in China needs to change as quickly. Unfortunately, on its political relations with the Chinese people it is trying harder to maintain the status quo than to be proactive in meeting its new challenges. The time to change is when times are good. And right now, I am actually optimistic a new track can be taken peacefully. Given a couple more years and/or when events are less favourable to China I may not be so optimistic. We have recent examples of both approaches - the USSR on the one hand and Korea and taiwan on the otherhand.
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